Seventh Set of Ghazals for 2003

Wed Dec 24 19:03:35 2003

After too many weeks, here's another set of ghazals, the seventh and last for 2003. Fortuitously, there are also seven ghazals here, from five poets. I'm pleased that there's more variety than one might expect. Every so often, someone asks me about the range of "ghazals" on The Ghazal Page. I intend to publish ghazals with the full traditional form; part of the tradtitional form; only indirect allusions to the traditional form. I would like the poems that appear here to both fulfill and challenge notions of a "real" ghazal.

Agha Shahid Ali reflects the orthodox view of ghazal form when he says,

Each line must be of the same length (inclusive of the rhyme and refrain). In Urdu and Persian, all the lines are usually in the same meter and have the same metrical length. So establish some system--metrical or syllabic--for maintaining consistency in line lengths.
However, it is quite possible for a sophisticated and successful contemporary poem in English to have lines of varying length--as Antonia Quintana Pigno's excellent ghazal here attests. As my blog entries make clear (I hope), meter in English poetry is no uniform or simple thing. The poems in this set of ghazals include accentual-syllabic, accentual, and speech-phrase meters. The first two can be easily scanned and marked; the third is more difficult but also, perhaps, more common. Here are some comments on the individual poems.
"Descansos"
The exact particularity of language and image in this ghazal substantiate its moving subject. The texture of mingled English and Spanish provides a cloth to absorb--to hold--the tears of grief and loss.
"Default", "Dialogue"
Of the two ghazals by Peter Hook here, "Default" is the most traditional. Its pentameter is clear and focused; with qafiya, radif, matla, makhta, and takhallus ("Alone"), the poem fulfills the traditional requirements effectively.

"Dialogue" uses the traditional apparatus as well, but with a couple of differences: the last sher has three "first lines" as it feels toward closure; several parenthetical remarks add a layer in which the poet reflects on his poem. These devices break open the container of traditional form, while observing the formal niceties. The self-reflexivity makes this poem more than an exercise in meeting certain formal prescriptions.

"Ghazal at First Sight", "head ghazal"
Each of these poems has the full traditional form, but I bet "head ghazal" got a response from you--quizzical, annoyed, surprised. Its two-beat lines emphasize the isolated qafiya and radif. And the qafiya, of course, comes at the head of the line in this poem. Perhaps "head ghazal" is a kind of meta-ghazal--a "ghazal" that comments wryly on the form by its terse use of elements insisted on by formal purists.

"Ghazal at First Sight" adeptly uses the traditional form to trace the sexual dance. By the way, as I read the meter of this poem, it has a four-beat line, a variation of Gerard Manley Hopkins sprung rhythm, a meter as "natural" to English as iambic pentameter.

"A Ghazal of Gardens"
A garden is always an image of Paradise (which word itself means "garden"). And gardens always carry the burden of "life and death," both the original garden east of Eden and the dessicated patch of tomato vines behind the garage. Life and death, gardens: couples, relationships, "young hearts"; this ghazal returns us to the place of return--dirt, light, vegetable flesh. Graham's poem, a love poem, a reflection, makes effective use of the ghazal form.
"Gallipoli 1915"
I will let Bob Kennedy's letter provide most of the comment on this poem, only pointing out three things: (1) the Blakean quality of nouns such as "Grave" and "Cradle"; (2) the tripled qafiya, using rhymes on -ource, -ets, and -ays; (3) the double (or triple!) radif: "beginnings and ends," "never," and "ever." These devices create a percussive insistence on the poem's themes that seems completely in keeping with the nature of the ghazal.

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Wed Dec 24 11:42:48 2003

Notes on "Gallipoli 1915,"
by R. L. Kennedy

Dear Gino:

Attached please find a new ghazal entitled "Gallipoli." The journey I had in creating this poem was interesting. I am putting together a chapbook on the Major Rogation Day, April 25th. A little research showed me that April 25th was the birthday of many people of military and philosophical talents, so I am entitling my work Madmen and Dreamers. It is also when the World War I Battle of Gallipoli is remembered, which fit in well with my theme. The Christian-Moslem nature of the conflict seemed to make a ghazal particularly appropriate. It was also a battle of the minds of two men who would figure decisevely in their respective countries' histories: Winston Churchill who played such an important role in World War II and Mustafa Kemal who would be later known as Attaturk, the father of modern Turkey.

Some explanation of the poem may be necessary:

(1) Mehmets and Johnnies--These are very common Turkish and English names which Kemal used as common generics in a quite moving statement about the war:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lose their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where the lie side by side in this country of ours. You the mothers, who sent their sons from far away wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
(2) April 25th is also ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand, whose military comprised a major component of the British force at Gallipoli. The Poppy is a common symbol of respect for veteran's days throughout the world and has gained somewhat of an assoication with Gallipoli, especially in Australia and New Zealand. More than one article I read in the course of my reasearch suggested that poppies proliferate during war because they thrive on lime which is released into the soil when artillery crushes masonry.

Sincerely,

Bob Kennedy

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Descansos

by Antonia Quintana Pigno
Alongside New Mexico highways are the signs of our dead--Descansos.
Crosses of wrought iron, gray cottonwood, stone. We stop and pray. Descansos

The children form fragrant blooms from paper tissues. Each
soft fold flutters, tatters, bleaches, and withers on Descansos.

Mi querida tía. You speeded to your plunging death at Glorieta Pass:
The magistrado Baca still with you--one of twin white Descansos

Your hijita refused you a final besito skipping quickly
out to play. The slap of the screen door foretold Descansos.

Feverish, Tío Félix died alone in a cold harvest room
surrounded by wine and whiskey empties--his Descansos.

In the highlands cemetery between Chimayó's Santuario and Truchas,
broken Harley-Davidson parts shape Paté's chrome Descansos.

De la foto dice David--En la carretera de Huelva a Punta Umbria,
puede verse esta cruz a las víctimas de un accidente de coche. Descansos.

Georgia O'Keeffe painted the morada "Black Cross" above the Sangre de Cristos.
During Holy Week, los penitentes reenact the passion of Christ. Descansos.

Of the forgotten site of la Batalla de Embudo
says Estevan Arrellano: Everywhere we looked were Descansos.

A lifetime in these Sangre de Cristo Mountains, beneath cobalt skies--
¡Ay! ¡Dios! Sometimes you see, and sometimes don't: Descansos.

In the kiva, no cross enters. Not ever. Toni, the young Laguna,
climbs towards the sky blue circle, towards winter and distant Descansos.

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Default

by Peter Hook
No game in being a winner by default.
The same with being a sinner by default.

Let others add an ounce to every pound,
While we keep getting thinner. By default.

Not just by lions, tigers, sharks, and worms
Are we defined as dinner by default.

Still at the center of his turning world
The Sufi is a spinner by default.

Look at me standing on my head to see
The frowner turn to grinner by default.

We've heard, "What can't go on forever won't."
We'll learn, by discipline or by--default!

Alone, as prodigal or profligate
You'll end--a poor beginner--by default.

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Ghazal at First Sight

by Daniel Zimmerman
Whenever the couple thought to commence
they wondered whether they ought to commence.

Consider them angels and, as such,
on heaven's template wrought to commence.

Wingless, they hesitate:
whence, after all, were they brought to commence?

Dimming their gleam, they contemplate:
under what master taught to commence?

Breath catching breath, gaze catching gaze,
frozen in silence they fought to commence.

How could their longing have grown so adept,
innocent of what they sought to commence?

Shining in darkness, they ponder the trust
Daniel mustered with naught to commence.

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Gallipoli 1915
Beginnings and Ends

by R. L. Kennedy
Notes on the poem by the author

A Grave's malaise never regrets beginnings and ends.
A Cradle's "mays" ever whets beginnings and ends.

A Madman's ways never frets with true remorse.
A Dreamer's gaze ever upsets beginnings and ends.

A Moslem's phrase never sets an immoral course.
A Christian's morays ever vets beginnings and ends.

Churchill's yea's never forget the imperial Norse.
Kemal's nay's ever beset beginnings and ends.

Mehmets' ballets never unset the whirling source.
Johnnies' plays ever vignette beginnings and ends.

A Bomb's spray's never threats a moral force.
A Poppy's leis ever begets beginnings and ends.

A Body's clays never get beyond the coarse.
A Sprit's rays ever abet beginnings and ends.

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A Ghazal of Gardens

by Taylor Graham
You bring me where they grow life and death,
weeds and wonders where men hoe life and death.

You smile like August blooming blind with flowers,
that smells so sweet it needn't show life and death.

I've other matters on my mind today, engrossed
in scientific phrases, all so life-and-death.

But you point out that sunflower, this single rose
where someone's planted, in a row, life and death.

Young hearts always find the things they look for,
and overlook how all along they sow life and death.

Why should I remind you, when you pluck a bloom,
the tally mounts and you owe life and death.

That's the thing with gardens, far too beautiful
to bear, for all they know, life and death.

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head ghazal

by Daniel Zimmerman
all in your head
comes to a head

algebra calls
sums to a head

everything's all
thumbs to a head

sometimes the moon
hums to a head

Dan brings moment-
ums to a head

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Dialogue

by Peter Hook
"How can you speak so breezily to me?"
"What's hard for you comes easily to me!"
 (dialog between the Lover and the Beloved)
Indeed she was so kind as not to say
Why she behaved so cheesily to me.
 (self-mockery in interlude)
"A million's not a miserly amount."
"From you? It still looks measly to me."
Now eloquent now reticent he spoke,
Then paused and turned uneasily to me.
 (The "ghair" or Rival speaks for the Lover.)
Alone, we haven't had our fill of rhyme,
No, no, we've yet to get our share of rhyme,
Or, better yet, to get our sher in rhyme . . .
Or so it seems, increasingly, to me.
 (ironic self-address)
(These variants depend on oral performance.)
(paronomasia)

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